We have already pointed out (see Sotsial-Demokrat
No. 41)[1]
that Nashe Slovo should at least come
out with a definite platform if it wishes its internationalism to be taken
seriously. As though in reply to us, No. 85 of Nashe Slovo (May
9), published the resolution passed at a meeting of its Paris staff and
contributors. “Two members of the editorial staff,” we are
informed, “while in agreement with the general content of the
resolution, declared they would submit a dissenting opinion on the
organisational methods of the Party’s internal policy in
Russia.” This resolution is a most noteworthy document of political
bewilderment and ineptness.

The word internationalism is reiterated time and again; “complete
ideological divorcement from all the varieties of socialist
nationalism” is announced, and the Stuttgart and Basle resolutions
are quoted. The intentions are of the best, no doubt, but-it is all a mere
phrase, since it is impossible and unnecessary to have a really
“complete” divorcement from “all” extant varieties
of social-nationalism, just as it is impossible and unnecessary to have a
complete list of all the varieties of capitalist exploitation in order to
become an enemy of capitalism. But it is necessary and possible to have an
unmistakable line of cleavage with the main varieties, for instance, with
that of Plekhanov, Potresov (Nashe Dyelo), the Build, Axelrod,
and Kautsky. The resolution promises too much, but gives nothing; it
threatens a complete cleavage with all varieties, but is afraid to mention
by name at least the most significant of them.

In the British Parliament it is considered a discourtesy to call a man by
his name, the practice being to speak only
of the respective “Noble
Lord” or of the “Honourable Member” for whatever
constituency he may represent. What excellent Anglomaniacs, what highly
refined diplomats these Nashe Slovo people are! They evade the
gist of the issue so gracefully, and are so polite when they provide their
readers with formulas that serve to conceal their thoughts. They avow
“friendship”(“Guizot in the flesh”, as one of
Turgenev’s characters puts
it[3]) for all organisations
“inasmuch as they apply... the principles of revolutionary
internationalism”, but manifest “friendship” for those who
do not apply those principles.

The “ideological divorcement” the Nashe Slovo people
proclaim the more solemnly, the less willing and able they are to carry it
out, must consist in explaining the origin. of social-natibnalism,
the source of its strength, and the means to combat
it. The social-nationalists do not call themselves, and do not admit to
being, social-nationalists. They are bending, and are compelled to bend,
every effort to hide behind a pseudonym, to throw dust in the eyes of the
working masses, to cover up the traces of their links with opportunism, to
conceal their betrayal, i.e., their having gone over in fact to the side of
the bourgeoisie, and their alliance with the governments and the General
Staffs. Grounding themselves on this alliance, and in control of all the
important positions, the social-nationalists are, more than anybody else,
clamouring for “unity” between the Social-Democratic parties and
levelling the accusation of splitting tendencies, against all those who are
opposed to opportunism. Consider, for instance, the latest official circular
released by the Executive (Vorstand) of the German
Social-Democratic Party and directed against journals that stand for
genuine
internationalism—Lichtstrahlen^^113^ and Die
Internationale.[4] These journals did not have to avow
either “friendship” for the revolutionaries or “complete
ideological divorcement from all varieties of
social-nationalism”. They just began with the divorcement, and done
that in such a way that indeed “all varieties” of opportunists
have raised a savage outcry, thus proving how squarely the arrows have hit
the mark.

It is rising up against social-nationalism, while still on bended knees
before it, since it has failed to unmask the most
dangerous defenders of
this bourgeois current (such as Kautsky); it has not declared war against
opportunism, but, on the contrary, has kept silent about it; it has not
taken or indicated any real steps towards liberating socialism from its
disgraceful patriotic fetters. By stating that neither unity nor a break
with those who joined the bourgeoisie is imperative, Nashe Slovo
has in fact surrendered to the opportunists, while at the same time making a
fine gesture, which can be interpreted as meaning either that it is
threatening the opportunists with its dreadful ire, or that it is waving a
hand to them. Were the really deft opportunists, who have a fine
appreciation of a blend of Left phrases and moderate practice, compelled to
make reply to the Nashe Siovo resolution, they would most probably
say something similar to the statement made by the two staff members,
namely, that they are in agreement with the “general
content”(because they are certainly not social-nationalists, Oh, no!);
as for the “organisational methods of the Party’s internal
policy” they will, in due course, submit, a “dissenting
opinion”. They run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.

When it had to deal with Russia, however, Nashe Slovo’s
subtle diplomacy proved abortive.

“Party unification in the conditions of the previous period proved
impossible in Russia,” says the resolution, which should be understood
as meaning that unification of the working-class party with a group of
legalist liquidators proved impossible. This is oblique recognition of the
collapse of the Brussels bloc, which was formed to save the liquidators. Why
is Nashe Siovo afraid openly to recognise this collapse? Why is it
afraid openly to make the causes of this collapse clear to the workers? Is
it not because the bloc’s collapse has proved the actual falseness of
the policy pursued by all its members? Is it not because Nashe Slovo
wishes to preserve “friendship” with two (at least two)
“varieties” of social- nationalism, namely, with the Bundists and
the Organising Committee (A.xelrod) both of whom have made press statements
about their plans and their hopes to resurect the Brussels bloc?

“The new conditions... are cutting the ground from under the feet
of the old groups ....”

Is not the reverse true? Far from eliminating liquidationism, the new
conditions have not even shaken its basic
nucleus (Nasha Zarya),
notwithstanding all personal vacillations and changes of front. They have
deepened and aggravated differences with that nucleus, since, besides being
liquidationist, it has also turned social-nationalist! Nashe Slovo
evades the question of liquidationism, which it finds so unpleasant; the old
is being undermined by the new, it asserts, but it is silent about the
new ground, the social-nationalist, under the feet of the
old... liquidationism! What ridiculous shiftiness! We shall say
nothing about Nasha Zaryc because it is no more, and nothing about
Nashe Dyelo, probably because Potresov, Cherevanin, Maslov and Co. may
be regarded in the political sense, as babes in arms.

It is not only Potresov and Co., but themselves as well that the Nash
Slovo editors would regard as babes in arms. Listen to this:

“Faced by the fact that the factional and inter-factional groupings
created in the past serve, even at the present transitional moment, as the
only [!} centres for the organisational unification, however imperfect, of
the advanced workers, Nashe Slovo is of the opinion that the
interests of its main activities in uniting the internationalists exclude
both organisational submission of the paper, directly or indirectly, to any
one of the old party groupings, and artificial unification of its
fellow-thinkers into a separate group politically opposed to the old
groupings.”

What does this mean? How is it to be taken? Inasmuch as the new
conditions are undermining the old groupings, they recognise the latter as
the only genuine ones! Inasmuch as the new conditions demand a new
grouping, not on liquidationist principles, but on internationalism, they
reject as “artificial” any unification of internationalists. This
is the very acme of political impotence!

After two hundred days of propaganda of internationalism, Nashe Slovo
has acknowledged its complete political bankruptcy. It wants neither
“submission” to the old groupings (why so fear-stricken a word as
“submission”? Why not “adhesion”,
“support”, “solidarity with”?), nor the creation of
new ones. We shall go on living in the old way, it says, in liquidationist
groupings; we shall “submit” to them, while using Nashe
Slovo as a blatant signboard, or regarding it as a promenade through
the leafy gardens of
internationalist phraseology. The Nashe Slovo
writers will do the writing, while Nashe Slovo readers will do the
reading.[5]

For two hundred days these people were talking of uniting the
internationalists, only to arrive at conclusion that they could unite
nobody, not even themselves, the editors and staff of Nashe Slovo,
and to proclaim that unification “artificial”. What a fillip for
Potresov, the Bundists, and Axeirod! And what adroit deception of the
workers! On the surface, resonant internationalist phrases from a truly
non-factional Nashe Slovo that has thrown off the old and outworn
groupings; in fact, however, the old groupings are the
“only” points of unity.

Nashe Slovo’s ideological and political bankruptcy which
it now admits, is no accident, but the inevitable result of vain attempts to
shrug off, in word, the actual alignment of forces. In the working-class
movement of Russia this alignment expresses itself in the struggle of the
liquidationist and social-patriotic trend (Nashe Dyelo) against
the Marxist Social-Democratic Labour Party, which has been restored by the
January 1912
Conference,[6] strengthened by the elections, in the worker
curia, to the Fourth Duma, consolidated by the Pravdist papers of 1912-14,
and represented by the Russian Social-Democratic Labour group in the
Duma. This Party has continued its struggle against the bourgeois
trend of liquidationism by combating the no less bourgeois trend of
social-patriotism. The correctness of the line of this Party, our Party, has
been borne out by the vast and historic experience of the European war, and
by the exiguous and lender experience of the latest, the one thousand and
first non-factional attempt at unification on the part of Nashe
Slovo: this attempt has suffered a fiasco, thereby confirming the
resolution of the Berne Conference (Sotsial-Demokrat No. 40)
concerning “platonic”
internationalists.[2]

Genuine internationalists will wish neither to remain in the old
liquidationist groupings (concealing this from the workers) nor to stand
outside of the groupings. They will come to our Party.